I made the trek back down to Canberra to pick up the second of my fairladies yesterday. This one is still in one lump with the exception of the carbs, radiator, water pump and rocker gear which came in a seperate box, and two guages which appear to be missing altogether :mellow: . The cast iron water pump has a few cracks in it - perhaps this is why the car was taken off the road ?? And the rocker gear has been in contact with water and is now VERY rusty
Initially, I thought this was the worst of the two. Having had a good look, its actually not too bad. Rust is absolutely minimal, only major area is in one sill. The interior is pretty much dead - it looks to have been in storage for a long time as all the vinyl is hard and brittle and a lot of the rubber seals have "melted" to a gooey mess. The body looks much worse than it is as the last coat of paint hasn't stuck and is coming away everywhere, so you can see the light blue underneath the more recent dark blue paint job.
This one should have the earlier G15 motor, but I was told it has been replaced by an R16 that was fitted to these little cars from 1966 onwards (this one is a '65 model). The two motors are almost the same, but the G15 has a smaller bore and longer stroke for a capacity of 1500cc's. Despite meaning to check, I still haven't confirmed what motor it actually has.
The driver's seat and soft top mechanism that are missing in the photos are still on the back seat of my commodore - I forgot to unpack them when I unloaded the car into my brother's garage :rolleyes:
Couldn't help myself with the last photo - the old and the new (the fairladies and my brother's 350Z)